Dark Paradise
by g.ecreally
Summary: It has been over a year since Athena awoke with a memory like untouched snow, surrounded by those who called themselves her family. They were Death Eaters, and they told her she belonged there with them. Her scattered memories were intangible and utterly unreachable, but the Dark Mark already on her skin was too concrete to ignore. (Title from Dark Paradise by Lana del Rey)


Athena awoke with tears on her cheeks. She quickly grabbed her small notebook from its hiding place and began frantically scribbling all she could remember. Dreams were like tiny pinholes in the large wall that separated her from all she had known a year ago. Maybe with enough of them she'd feel some light shining through.

In her dream, she had been following a figure dressed in a long and very bright red cloak, the hood of which obscured their face. Her sleeping mind had had the distinct impression that this person had taken something crucial from her, something that she needed above all else. When she saw a pretty long-fingered hand emerge from the scarlet cloak holding a vial with gently swirling white liquid, she had understood. _This woman has stolen my memories. I must take them back._

Her dream self has immediately broke into a sprint and started to scream, begging and demanding her memories be given back. The woman didn't run, but seemed to glide, faster and faster, just out of Athena's reach. Frustrated, Athena had taken out her wand and yelled a curse, a dark curse that would immobilize the dream-woman and probably kill her.

Now, attempting to remember the dream, she thought wryly of how her family would approve. She'd begun to think like a Death Eater even in dreams. _Why chase something when you can destroy it?_

Her dream self easily overtook the dying figure, who crawled forward on elbows despite having lost function of her legs.

"You know," Athena had drawled, in her best impersonation of Lucius Malfoy's casual cruelty, "if you had just given it to me I would not have had to kill you. People like me always get what we want, and people like you-"

Her voice had caught in her throat because the figure's hood had finally fallen back and revealed a pale and heart-shaped face, lower lip fuller than the upper, with stunning bright purple eyes. Completely identical to Athena, save for dirt smudges on her forehead and blood trickling out of her nostrils from the curse. Athena knelt beside her dying self and attempting to take the vial, but the dying woman laughed and crushed it in her hands. Bright red blossomed in her palms where the glass cut her.

Athena let out a scream of frustration, and the woman laughed madly. "You do not deserve this," she croaked with her final breaths. "We are not the same, and this belongs to only me." Her lips were now coated with her own blood, in a cruel imitation of the red lipstick Athena habitually wore. Athena tried to cup the leaking memories in her hands as they dissipated into a fog that blinded her, causing her to panic and awaken.

Finally finished with her frantic scribbling of the encounter, Athena frowned as she read what was on the page. "_The other me had a long, bright red cloak like Little Red Riding Hood_."

She knew, she thought she knew, that Riding Hood was a muggle. _No, that's not right, not a real muggle, a fake one. Fiction. A….fairy tale._ _**Damn it.**_ Athena knew, as a good Slytherin from one of the great families and a faithful Death Eater, she should certainly not know who Little Red Riding Hood is. Neither should she know what a hobbit is, or a baseball, or a microwave oven.

Looking furtively around her room, she flipped to the back of her dream journal to the page entitled _Things No One Had to Tell Me_. For a young woman in her twenties, the list was depressingly short.

Last year, her family had rescued her from Dumbledore and his Order of the Phoenix. These people had recognized her impressive magical talent and coveted it, desiring to use her as a weapon for their side of the war, to set her against her own family. After years of trying to convince her through treachery and torture, they had captured her and erased her memories. Their idea was that without the memory of her family and the knowledge that she was a proper heir of Slytherin, they would be able to rewire her brain and personality and convince her that she'd been on their side all along.

Luckily, her family had stepped in and rescued her from the vicious fools before she had awoken from the memory curses and been brainwashed. Unfortunately, her memories were gone for good. She felt like an infant, stupid and useless in this war. She longed for the freedom of knowing who she had been and who she was now.

All of this led to her grasping at straws in her dreams and endlessly barraging Regulus Black, the best friend that she had, with countless questions ranging from _Have I had sex yet? _ to _Do I like to draw?_

But she could only ask other people so much. What of her secrets, things her knowledgeable self had thought and seen and known yet left no record of? Those were gone forever. What of lies she may have told, that other people had believed and now gave back to her? She felt as if the real Athena Gaunt had died last year and she was merely a pale imitation of what she ought to have been. A poorly put together ghost. A cancer that had taken over the old Athena's body until she died with blood upon her lips.

She had tried to describe this to Regulus and he had been utterly horrified. He had not even let her finish describing the split she felt before he furiously interrupted, "That's not true, Athena. You are just as you were. This is you, this is have you have always been. Never say that again, to me or anyone else." The others would lose their tempers often at her and use painful magic to punish her for her slowness, but Regulus had never so much as scolded her before. Yet he looked truly horrified at her words. That day '_Regulus agrees that I am different than I was and it scares him_' was added to the list.

Sighing at the fickle nature of her own mind, she closed the journal before placing both hands atop it and silently casting a Disillusionment charm over the book before stashing it in her secret place beneath a loose floorboard under her desk.

Other people could not and did not perform wandless magic. This information, like historical facts and other spells, had not been lost to her in the curse. Only the events of her own life were gone. The only other people who cast wandless magic were the very young, and they could not control it nearly as well as she could. Once she had discovered this trait, she had not revealed it to the others and had no idea if they already knew about it from before the incident. She was afraid to ask.

She had no wand of her own. She was allowed a wand only under the most controlled of circumstances, when older Death Eaters gave her daily tutelage in dark magic and dueling. Even then, others stood guard to prevent her from hurting herself. She knew that it was important to them that she was always under control.

What would happen if they knew she did not require the wand they so sparingly lent her? What would happen when they knew her powers were beyond them and their attempts at restraint? Probably what little privacy she was granted in this place would be taken away. Now, she had her own room to sleep and read in. There were always guards outside and she was not permitted to leave without them. But at least she dressed and slept more or less alone.

Her dreams hidden, she took off her nightgown in exchange for a bra and panties before brushing her long black hair and putting on make up. In her current working memory she had never left the Death Eater Headquarters and saw little point in maintaining a pretty personal appearance, but this was one of the few direct orders she had received from her master, the Dark Lord. As a member of his own esteemed family she was quite the prize, regardless of physical attributes. But Lord Voldemort had told her that her youth and beauty made her even more enticing a gift to be given to a faithful servant. She was required to dress the part; all clothing available to her after that day was black, tight, and revealing.

She shuddered at the memory now, remembering how He had run pale fingers through her dark hair. It had been a more practical length then, only to her shoulders. She had been told not to cut it, told to keep her legs shaved because of the short dresses and heels she would now always wear, told to never be seen without lips the color of blood. Finishing her make up and putting on high heels, she stood before her full-length mirror and stared critically at herself in her black lingerie. She'd been plumper when she first awoke, she remembered. Not heavy, but definitely more athletic looking, healthier. But a year of seclusion and a carefully controlled diet had taken much of her physical strength away from her. She was thin and pale, with hair that now nearly reached her ass. She supposed she probably looked good. She felt like Goth Barbie, to be dressed and undressed for people bigger and more powerful than herself to play with.

_FUCK. Why the hell do I know what a Barbie is?!_

She was no muggle or muggleborn; she was a Gaunt. But she knew a disturbing amount of random non-magical popular culture. She was beginning to think she may have had a sick fascination with the stupid people born without magic. She was just considering the theory that her old self had a freaky muggle fetish before her door banged open and Avery barged in. She could hear Regulus, currently on duty outside her door now, protesting before being silenced by the larger and more experienced Death Eater.

"Don't you knock?" she demanded angrily, attempting to imitate Bellatrix Black's trademark vicious tone. She wanted nothing more than to run and hide, to dive under cover of the blankets on her ornate bed to hide her body from this disgusting man.

Zeal was to be expected when loyal followers loved the Dark Lord as much as his Death Eaters did, but she was intimidated and horrified by Avery. Last week, she'd heard Bellatrix remark dreamily to her sister about how the man seemed to get visibly erect after killing followers of Dumbledore. Athena had been aghast; Bellatrix had sounded positively aroused.

She wanted to hide, but she knew that Avery's particular violence had highly recommended him to Voldemort as an ideal husband for her. She would not, could not, let him know how terrified she was of him. She put her hands on her hips and lifted an eyebrow, as if it was below her to speak any more to him.

Avery grinned at here in a way that seemed to suggest a wolf cornering a rabbit. _Stop that_, she scolded herself, _You are not a rabbit. You are a lioness!_ Later, she would have the time to ponder why she automatically tried to compare herself to the female version of a decidedly Gryffindor beast. Now, she had to deal with _him._

Avery's voice was deep and harsh. "Ah, the Lady Athena. From the way your young puppy Black protested my entrance, I thought I'd find you naked. I'm disappointed."

Athena's back stiffened. "You shouldn't be. It would mean nothing to you. No man is to touch me until the Dark Lord gifts me in marriage. Or are you not important enough to know that?" she answered defiantly.

Avery's black eyes seemed to further darken in his anger. "For your information, _princess, _I've come upon valuable information that will lead us to the Prewetts and maybe even the Longbottoms. So that day, when our master picks the most worthy of the men to marry you? Its coming soon."

The witty insult she'd been working on slipped from her mind. Of course, since Voldemort planned to give her to the most faithful and successful of his eligible servants, she'd always known she'd be stuck with one of the crueler ones; they were simply the best at rooting out nests of Order supporters. _But did it have to be Avery?_

Avery was near her own age, he must have known her at school. Supposedly he ought to have been friends with her, or at least housemates in Slytherin. Yet she only ever felt cold hatred from him. She knew he desired her, but it was different from the earnest longest she sensed from Regulus, different even from the carnal desire of Mulciber. Avery wanted to lord over her, control her, rule her. She did not believe he would be a particularly generous husband.

The man continued. "The battle will take place late tomorrow night. You…are coming with us. It's a test for the both of us, to see if I'm worthy of you, and to see if you're ready for our marriage and ready to be reinstated as an active follower of the Dark Lord. When that occurs, you'll be given a wand, and your liberty."

Athena started. _Going with them? I'm…leaving Headquarters? And fighting?_ She wanted to go outside, needed the freedom of wind on her face. She thought that she could endure a marriage to Avery if only she was given some semblance of the liberty that she craved. Was she ready to fight and kill, though? Was she strong enough? She thought of the men that had stolen her memories and tried to pry her own personality and soul from her body. _Dumbledore and the vicious Marauders._ Hatred and anger surged through her like venom.

Truthfully, she disliked a great many of the Death Eaters, Avery included. But the Order? She loathed them with a ferocity that scared her. She could kill them, easily.

Athena bared her teeth. "Ready? I was born ready."


End file.
